Car Wash Creatures

We live in central Ohio.  That means winters are freezing cold and sometimes snowy.  When inclement weather does make its appearance, roads are covered in salt in preparation of hazardous conditions.  For those of us that drive on these salted roads, you know how quickly a car of any color can turn salt white.  This is the situation we were graced with: a salty white car.

What's more is when you are carrying a bunch of items or just a purse and a child and/or attempting to maneuver your pregnant self out of the car in the very tight parking spaces at your child's daycare, or anywhere for that matter, you very quickly find that this salt ends up getting EVERYWHERE.  Your coat, your boots, your purse, your bags of groceries...your child...everywhere.

Since my normal dark-ish gray car turned a salty white, and the temperatures were above freezing for 24 hours, Kate and I decided we'd stop by the car wash on the way home from school.

It dawned on me that this was Kate's first time at an automatic car wash!  And I personally thought she'd enjoy it!  What I didn't think about was how frightening a bunch of large sea like creatures coming straight toward you and engulfing you might be to a two-something year old.  The moment the car wash started, Kate became silent and her eyes got SO BIG.  Like, I have never seen her eyes this wide, people!  She didn't ask questions, she didn't laugh, she didn't cry, she just experienced sheer two year old terror for a few minutes...

What the?!  Mommy, there's something coming toward our car...

And it's on the right...

And the left!

She hunkered down in her car seat and stayed like this
for the whole wash.

Bless her dear little heart.  Of course the car wash would be scary as a first timer.  It would probably scare me too, but I'll tell you what, Kate has asked to go to the car wash every day after school for a week now!  Perhaps it was the lollipop that she received at the start of the wash, perhaps it actually ended up being fun.  We did survive car wash creatures after all!  I imagine in just a few car wash visits, Kate will be a seasoned pro at tackling these fellas!  Plus a little bribe with a lollipop will pretty much win Kate over anything these days!